One of my favorite things about my job is the interesting people I meet. And I met several today on a tour of nonPareil Institute, a nonprofit technology company housed on Southern Methodist University’s campus in Plano.

One is Aaron Winston, the 21-year-old developer of an app called Spaceape, in which a Cosmonaut Ape named Dmitri flies around outer space, scooping upbananas and dodging asteroids, comets and, later in the game, aliens.

I gave it a whirl, but I crashed and burned long before I got to the aliens.

Winston, like all of nonPareil’s students and many of its staffers, is autistic. The institute provides technical training to adults on the autism spectrum, teaching teamwork and skills that enable them to work on teams and create products, like Spaceape, for market release.

It’s a perfect fit for Winston, he said.

“They gave me the skills I needed,” he said. “There is less pressure here and great camaraderie. People understand how I’m made up.”

If you like nonPareil Institute’s mission, one of the easiest ways you can help is by buying their apps, like Spaceape and another developed by Cheryl O’Brien called NPI Soroban, which is basically an abacus for the iPad and other tablet and smart-phone devices. The apps cost 99 cents and are available at an app store near you.

If you download Spaceape, watch out for those darn comets. Happy dodging.

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